Emergency department (ED) visits have continued to rise, and frequent ED users account for up to 8% of all ED visits. Reducing visits by frequent ED users may be one way to help reduce health care costs. We hypothesize that frequent users have unique ED utilization patterns resulting in differences in health care charges.

We conducted a retrospective review of electronic medical records from an urban community teaching hospital for the year 2012 comparing the top 108 frequent ED users (>12 visits/year) to a randomly selected group of 108 nonfrequent users (<4 visits/year). We compared demographic characteristics, distance lived from the hospital, medical and psychiatric history, substance abuse history, diagnostic testing, disposition, and amount charged to the patient for each visit. We compared data using χ² for proportions and t test or Wilcoxon rank sum based on normality of the data.

The top 108 frequent ED users accounted for 1922 visits (2.9%), whereas the 108 nonfrequent users accounted for 150 visits (0.2%), in 2012 (all ED visits n = 65,398). Frequent users were more often unemployed, have public insurance, have mental health conditions, use tobacco, have a greater number of allergies to medications, and live closer to the hospital (P < .01). Disposition and median charge per visit did not differ between frequent and nonfrequent users ($1220 vs $1280). The total charges of the frequent ED users’ visits were $10,465,216.07 versus $1,012,610.21 for nonfrequent users.

Frequent users have unique medical and social characteristics; however, disposition and visit charges did not differ from nonfrequent users.